I was thinking of sitting at a table at SaltCon on Saturday and challenging random passers by to play Polynesia, and I realized that since I have two copies of the game, I could easily give away a copy of the game to someone (as both a reward for playing and a way to get the name of the game out)

I don't quite know what method to use to determine who to award the copy of the game to.

Since the winner of the game is determined by score, I thought that perhaps I would just record the ending score of every game and reward the game to the person (besides myself) who got the highest score.

Another option would be to just put everyone's name in a hat and pick one out at random.

The purpose of this thread is to come up with the best way to get a lot of people to play my game, so what method would you guys recommend?

Also, does anyone know if this is something that the people that are in charge of SaltCon would want to know about? I don't want to step on anybody's toes here. I have starts to look into it, but I haven't found any info about whether such an event would be against the rules.

for artwork I have used all public domain images and images that the artist released for public use (some required attribution, other didn't, but I provided attribution for all my images because it seemed easier from a design perspective.)

I think that I am o.k. from a legal perspective (certainly the fact that I am not making money from this would be a good argument for fair use in any case, but I think that I can even make money and still be in the clear).

When I get a publisher to pick this project up they will probably provide their own artwork (or even re-theme the whole game anyway), so in the long run it shouldn't matter.

Right now my main goal is to get people to play the game and talk about it.

Just wanted to throw in a quick remark that the game is definitely worth trying. Michael sent me a PDF so I could have a copy printed. It picks up speed quickly, making it a great filler (takes about a half an hour)when you're waiting for others to arrive.

Depending on the scoring-mechanism, I'd say fx. 1 entry for each 10 points or so each player is able to get.

Beware that it can end up as a demotivator, if say you are at 62 points at near-end, without options to get to 70. It could leave a semi negative impression of your game with the player. Though I doubt it's a big deal. If your game is any good, it should by far outweigh this.

@Mads Fløe: I really like that idea - makes it not just based on who did the best, but also a bit based on luck, and people that do better will have a better chance to win.

I also just realized that I could easily print another coy of the game, so perhaps I should give away two copies: each with two of the expansions (since I have two copies of the base game and one copy of each of the expansions). This would allow two players to win a copy of the game.

@Ryan Hendricks: Thanks for the support. One of my goals in making the game was to make a game that was light enough that my wife would play it with me.

When we're holding these types of contest at the university we usually do a "if you win come back at XYZ hour for the finals" and then compare scores for the present finalists (so if 5 winners are present for a 4 player game then the 4 with best qualifying scores play for the prize).

That way we're sure to get double exposure, first from the initial play, then from the final. And we're likely to get finalist who care about winning the prize.

I have decided to give away two copies of the game, so probably I will be able to give away one copy based on who got the highest score (with a bit of randomness added in there to encourage the people who haven't pre-read the rules a bit), and the other copy given away based on who wins a final game. Since the game supports up to 7 players we could have a truly massive final game.

Now I have a second question:

How should I divide up the expansions among the winners? I have 4 expansions printed, and they can be added to the base game by themselves or in combination with other expansions, so I could give all four to one of the winners, or I could give 2 to each, or 3 to one winner and 1 to the other.